The Flash Flood Syndrome
by ChandaK562
Summary: While chasing an alien, Kay and Elle are caught in a flood. Based on the cartoon
1. Default Chapter

Elle slowly moved across the dry river bottom with her scanner, looking for any sign of the alien, a spiny toed Skilak, who had landed there the night before. Jay and Kay were busily inspecting either side of the river bed as she handled the bottom. Not a flicker on the scanner though. It looked like their perp had made a clean getaway.

"No sign of anything down here!" Elle called as she started towards the bank of the riverbed to climb out. Just then her foot slipped and twisted, wedging itself between two rocks. Elle started to struggle to free herself as a loud rumbling sound filled the air.

"Here. Let me give you a hand," Kay said as he slid down into the riverbed and knelt beside her, pulling at the rocks to free her trapped foot. Elle was watching Kay at first but suddenly the rumbling sound that she was hearing grew louder and she looked up just in time to see a large wall of water rushing down the riverbed heading straight for them.

"KAY!!" she screamed as the water hit them just as he freed her foot. Elle struggled against the powerful force as it swept her along, pounding her body against the sides and bottom of the river. She finally managed to get her head above water, he lungs burning as she drew in a breath of air before being swept back under. She didn't know how long this went on. She fought, clawed her way to the surface only to be sucked down again. Finally the water slammed her against the side of the river and she was able to grab onto a small outcropping and with a terrific struggle, she pulled herself out.

Elle laid there gasping for breath for a moment before sitting up and trying to figure out where she was. She had lost the scanner and her communicator when the water hit along with her shoes. She looked anxiously around but nothing seemed familiar, just miles of desert with no sign of Jay or.... She gasped as she remembered who had been with her when the water hit.

"KAY?!!" she called as she pulled herself to her feet and staggered along the riverbank looking for any sign of him. What if he had been hurt? She shook her head as she thought that. This was Kay she was thinking about, Kay who had survived man eating bugs and who knows how many horrors. A little water wasn't going to hurt him.

Elle stumbled along the riverbank for several minutes before she saw a flash of black washed up on the side. "Kay?" she whispered as she slipped down the bank, being careful not to fall in again. It was him, laying there still and unmoving, face down against the muddy edge of the river his lower body still in the water. Elle reached out and frantically shook his shoulders but he didn't respond to her touch or to her repeatedly calling his name.

She reached down and grabbed his jacket, pulling hard to get him to the top of the riverbank. She couldn't do anything with how he was laying and she was afraid that the water could snatch him away from her again. As soon as she had him on safe and level ground she knelt beside him and rolled him over onto his back. She gasped at the sight that greeted her. His face was battered and bruised, his eyes closed and his lips blue. She leaned down, putting an ear by his mouth and nose, tilting his head back with one hand while fumbling for a pulse with the other. Nothing. No breathing, no pulse. He was dead.


	2. Chapter 2

Kay!!" Elle cried, panicing filling her voice as she frantically pulled his shirt open and loosened his tie, pressing an ear to his chest to see if she could hear anything. Nothing. Not a sign of life.

She bent down and quickly pinched his nose closed before blowing quickly into his mouth twice, frowning a bit at the odd metallic taste on his lips, blood. She knew that she didn't have much time if she was going to save him. Who knows how long he had been under there without any oxygen or bloodflow to his brain? Her hands moved to his chest, her fingers quickly finding the proper location before she positioned her hands and begin to rapidly press down on his breastbone. 

"Come on," she murmured as she worked, counting out the cycle to herself. As soon as she finished the fifteenth compression, she leaned down and blew into his mouth again before beginning more compressions. There was more blood on his lips, she noticed, and in his mouth. She reached in and frantically cleared it so he wouldn't choke. Where was Jay? He had to have seen what happened! She needed more equipment fast!

Just then Kay's body twitched a bit, causing her to stop the compressions just as he started to throw up. "Kay?" she called as she rolled him onto his side, trying to keep the fright out of her voice when she saw that he was throwing up blood. She cleared the blood with the fingers of one hand while using the other to feel for a pulse. Nothing. She wanted to cry but she made herself roll him back onto his back and start the CPR again. Two more breaths and then another cycle of compressions.

Two, three, four minutes passed quickly as she worked over him, laboring to restore life to his battered body. Her shoulders burned and her chest throbbed but she forced herself to keep going. She couldn't stop, not now. She was his only chance! Where in the world was Jay? Why hadn't he found them already?! Her fingers reached down in search of a pulse as her eyes started to burn with tears. She couldn't let herself cry. Not now, not while he needed her. Suddenly she felt a faint movement under her fingers. She forced her tears to stop as she leaned down, putting an ear by his mouth and nose. A second later, she was relieved to fell a bit of air tickling her ear as she found a thready pulse in his neck. He was alive. Alive but she wasn't sure for how long.


	3. Chapter 3

"Kay?" Elle called as she knelt over him, lightly shaking his shoulders a bit to try to rouse him. He didn't move, didn't twitch. Not good at all. She started to quickly check him to see how badly he was injured. 

His breathing was weak, maybe six or seven times a minute and his color was horrible. His pulse was very thready and she couldn't even find it in his wrist, only in the neck and groin. His blood pressure had to be dropping rapidly. She slipped her jacket off, folding it and stuffing it under his feet to elevate them. She was worried about a possible injury to his back but that would have to be dealt with later. Her first concern was to keep enough blood circulating to keep him alive. She unfastened the top of his pants and slipped her hands along his stomach feeling for any swelling. She bit back a sob when she felt his rigid stomach muscles, knowing that that signalled bad internal bleeding. She had to get him back to headquarters fast!

Just then she remembered Kay's communicator and frantically fumbled in his jacket for it, sighing with relief when her fingers touched the object. "Jay?" she called as she pulled it out and flipped it on. She just hoped he was paying attention and the water hadn't damaged the communicator.

"Elle, where are you?" Jay called as he pulled his communicator out and flipped it on. He had been frantically searching the riverbed looking for any sign of his friends since the water had swept them away. "Where's Kay?"

"Jay, he's hurt. I need you to get the LTD and follow the communicator signal until you find us. I have no idea where we are." Elle told him.

"Drive the LTD? I can't do that! I don't have the keys!" Kay couldn't believe what Elle was saying about Kay being hurt. Kay was Mr. Perfect MiB. How could he have been hurt by a little water?

"Jay, hot wire it or something! I don't care! Just get here fast! We have to get Kay back to headquarters now!" Elle cried as she continued to check him as she talked, her fingers carefully examining his head and neck, feeling for any tenderness or swelling that might signal an injury.

"Hotwire the LTD," Jay muttered as he climbed into the car and leaned down under the dashboard. Kay was going to kill him for this. Of course Elle did tell him to do it. Maybe he could blame the entire thing on her if the car was damaged and escape with his life.

******

Elle was still examining Kay when the LTD pulled up and Jay hopped out. Jay started to come over to them but stopped in horror at the sight of his partner laying there, bloody and battered. He couldn't believe what he was seeing.

"Kay?" he whispered as he stared down at him in shock.

"Jay, pull yourself together," Elle told him as she looked up at the shocked agent. "We have to get him back to headquarters now!"

"What can I.... How bad is it?" Jay murmured.

"He's bleeding internally. I know that much. I need you to help me lift him. We need to get him into the backseat of the LTD. Just be very careful not to move him too much. I can't be sure there isn't spinal trauma." Elle said as knelt by Kay and prepared to lift his legs. "Come over here and get his head and shoulders and lift when I do, alright?"

Jay numbly followed Elle's instuctions, helping her to lift Kay and quickly lay him on the backseat. Elle scrambled in and knelt in the floorboard beside him, quickly checking his pulse and breathing again as Jay climbed behind the wheel.

"He's going to be alright, isn't he?" Jay asked as he started the car, watching in the rear view mirror to see what Elle was doing to Kay. Just then he noticed her taking a hand and slipping it into his groin. "What are you doing?"

"Femorial pulse," Elle murmured. She was starting to loose that. His blood pressure was dropping faster now. He was starting to slip towards irreversable shock. "Jay, get us to headquarters now!"


	4. Chapter 4

The communicator on the LTD's dashboard beeped as Jay steered the car along, going as fast as he could without hitting the red button and taking the LTD into top speed. He was good, but he didn't feel confident enough to do that. With how bad Kay looked, he didn't need to be jolted around if Jay couldn't keep the car under control.

"Jay?" Zed said as his face appeared on the screen. What in the galaxy was Jay doing driving the LTD? After what he did the last time he got behind the wheel surely Kay wouldn't have voluntarily handed over the keys! "Where's Kay?! What are you doing driving?"

"Zed, Kay's hurt," Elle called as she looked up, glancing over the front seat to see the face of the head of the MiB. "I need you to contact the infirmary for me. Tell them to have at least six units of O negative blood waiting when we get there and to get the operating room ready!"

"What? How bad is it?" Zed demanded. Surely Kay couldn't be hurt that badly. Kay was never hurt!

"He's bleeding internally and his blood pressure's in freefall," Elle murmured as she started to check him again. "Just tell them to be there and ready for us! I need to get him into surgery as soon as possible!"

********

Zed was waiting with the medical team when the LTD pulled into the garage of headquarters. "What happened?" he demanded as soon as Jay stopped the car and got out. The medical team immediately sawrmed the car, making it impossible to see how Kay was.

"We were checking out this dry riverbed," Jay started to explain as he stood on his toes trying to see over the medics' shoulders, to find out what was happening to his partner. "It must have been raining somewhere higher up or something because all of a sudden this wave of water came out of nowhere and Elle and Kay got washed away. The next thing I knew, Elle was calling and telling me to come and find her fast."

"Zed, Jay, move! You're in my light!" Elle demanded as she looked up at them as she looked up for a moment before returning her attention to Kay. She tilted his head back before inserting some sort of metal device into his mouth and then passing a tube down into his throat. As soon as she was sure that it was in the right place, she hooked the tubing to a bag mask device that one of the medics took over squeezing to send oxygen around his body. "Okay, let's get an IV line in and start running that blood with a pressure cuff! Someone bring a backboard so we can secure him! We have to get moving now!"

"How bad is it?" Zed called as the crowd parted, lifting Kay out of the car a moment later, securely fastened to a wooden board with an IV running into one arm as one of the medics attempted to fix a line in the other arm.

"I can't talk now," Elle said as she looked up at Zed for a moment before moving to the side of the stretcher that Kay had been loaded onto. "He has to get into surgery! Someone get a blood sample for a type and cross and let's get going!"


	5. Chapter 5

"How is he?" Zed demanded the second Elle appeared in the doorway nearly five hours later, dark circles under her eyes and blood staining her white lab outfit.

"It isn't good," Elle whispered as she looked at Jay and Zed. She wanted to collapse in tears. She was so exhausted from her own struggles in the flood and from the complicated surgery that she had just performed. She forced herself to stay on her feet, though. There was still too much that she had to do, procedures that had to be performed if Kay was going to have any chance of recovery. She didn't have time to collapse.

"Is he going to be alright?" Jay asked. He still couldn't quiet believe that his partner had been so badly injured. It all seemed like some kind of strange dream.

"Let me tell you what I found first," Elle said as she led them to some chairs and sat down beside them. "His spleen was ruptured and he had a laceration of his liver. I was able to repair that but I had to go ahead and remove the spleen. No way that it could be fixed. His stomach was ruptured too. Even though I was able to fix that damage, there's a real danger of infection from all of the foreign material and the stomach acid that was released into the abdominal cavity. I also found a flail chest with some injury to the underlying lung that had to be repaired."

"But he's going to be alright, isn't he? I mean, you were able to fix everything!" Jay said.

"I was able to fix his injuries, well, the physical injuries anyway but there are some other problems that I can't do anything about. When I found Kay, he wasn't breathing and he didn't have a pulse. I have no idea how long he had been without oxygen, but if it was too long, he may have suffered a degree of brain damage."

"What are his chances?" Zed asked quietly. This still didn't seem real to him.

"I can't really tell you right now. He's in a very deep coma at the moment," Elle whispered as she struggled to hold back tears, "and we're running tests to try to determine whether or not he suffered any brain damage and if he did the extent of it."

"When can we see him?" Jay asked. A coma? That was something that happened on those television soap operas that his Aunt Rose used to watch, not something that happened to your best friend.

"I'll come and get you as soon as we're finished with the tests. I think it would really help if he had friends with him right now," Elle said as she started to stand.

"Will he wake up?" Zed asked. "Surely you know that!"

"It depends on whether or not he's suffered brain damage and the extent of it," Elle whispered. "Best case scenerio would be for him to wake up in a few hours as soon as he's a bit more stable. Worst case scenerio, he has severe brain damage and never wakes up."


	6. Chapter 6

"You can see him now," Elle said as she came in and motioned for Jay and Zed to follow her down the hall and into a room a little bit later. Jay let out a soft gasp as they entered. Kay was attached to a bank of monitors, with an IV dripping blood into his arm as a respirator forced air into his lungs.

"How bad is it?" Zed asked as he pulled Elle aside. From the blonde agent's pale and shaken expression, he doubted there was good news.

"It's not all bad," Elle murmured as she shook her head to clear it a bit. She was just so tired but she couldn't rest. "The preliminary tests show that at least his brainstem, what controls breathing and the heartbeat, is functioning fine. I'm hoping to get him off of the respirator within a day or so if he does well."

"And the bad news?"

"The bad news is that there are some signs of damage to the rest of his brain."

"Brain damage? How bad is it? He's going to be alright, isn't he?" Jay asked as he joined Zed and Elle. He couldn't stand to look at his partner laying there like that, more dead than alive.

"I'm just not sure. The human brain can compensate for a lot with one side taking over for the other when there's an injury," Elle said as she sadly glanced over at Kay for a second before turning away. She couldn't let herself look at him or she would start sobbing and never stop. "And of course, there's a chance that he'll wake up and be fine. We just have to wait and see."

"Any idea of when he'll wake up?" Zed asked.

"Unfortunately, no. The coma is very deep. About as bad as comas get," Elle murmured. "But Kay was extremely healthy before this happened. That's a big point in his favor."

"Yeah, if anyone can pull through something like this, it's Kay. Nothing can keep him down," Jay said. "So, is there anything we can do? Some way to help him?"

"Talk to him. People in comas can still hear things," Elle said. "I would suggest waiting until tommorrow to try though. Give him a chance to recover a bit from the surgery."

"Alright. You just hang in there, alright?" Jay whispered as he went over to Kay's side and briefly touched his shoulder before following Zed out the door. Kay had to come out of this.

As soon as Jay and Zed were gone, Elle went back to Kay's bedside, idlely checking the monitors before sitting down and taking his hand in her own. She thought back on what had happened, what she had done when she found him running the events over and over in her mind as she tried to think of something that she could have done differently. Something that might have prevented him from being injured like this. Finally she couldn't stand it any longer and broke down, tears pouring down her face until her eyes slowly slipped shut as she drifted off to sleep still clinging to Kay's hand.


	7. Chapter 7

Elle slowly stirred, blinking her eyes as she tried to figure out where in the world she was. After a moment, she remembered what had happened the day before, how Kay had been critically injured. She looked down to see him still laying there still and silent, as if he was dead and in his coffin. She shook her head to chase away those morbid thoughts as she started to check the monitors he was attached to. At least the readings from them seemed positive.

"Well, let's see about getting you off of this machine, shall we?" Elle said as she moved around the bed, deftly adjusting the respirator settings. "Now this might hurt a bit." She reached down and grasped the respirator tube, pulling it out of his throat in one smooth motion. A second later, his chest trembled as he begin to slowly breathe on his own. Elle let out a small sigh of relieve when she saw that. She had been worried he wouldn't respond well to being taken off of the respirator so soon.

"Jay and Zed are going to come and visit you soon," she told him as she reached out and took his hand. "I'm sure that they're going to be to see that you're doing so well. So, do you think you can open your eyes for me? Everyone would be so happy if you would wake up for us."

Elle felt a twinge of worry when he didn't respond in anyway but she forced her concerns down. It was still very early and Kay was weak from his injuries and the surgery. He just needed time. "So, how about I help you get all cleaned up for your visitors?" Elle quickly hurried out to gather the things she would need: towels, a mild soap, water, a washcloth, shaving supplies and as an afterthought she ran back to her room and got a bottle of her favorite rose scented lotion.

"Okay," Elle said as she came back into the room a few minutes later. She set the supplies up on the table beside the bed, carefully easing Kay out of the hospital gown he was wearing and covering him from the waist down with one of the towels. She dipped the washcloth in the water and thn soaped it before applying it to his chest, slowly running it over the strong muscles there before moving on to his arms. She had to be careful to avoid the incision from the surgery as she washed his stomach. At least that seemed to be doing alright. No sign of infection and with MiB surgical techniques, it was already beginning to heal without a scar. She ran the wash cloth over his legs, carefully stroking and massaging his feet a bit before rolling him onto his side so she could do his back. After she was finished with that, she reached down, removing the towel and carefully cleaning his groin area.

"Now, don't you feel better?" Elle said as she slowly worked the lotion into his skin, massaging his muscles as she went before slipping him into a fresh gown. Then she applied lather to his face, and started to shave him, smiling a little as she ran the razor across his firm chin. Kay definately wasn't a bad looking man. As soon as she was done, she splashed on a bit of aftershave and then reached down, rolling him over so he rested on his side. "You're all ready for visitors."


	8. Chapter 8

"Elle, can I speak to you privately?" Zed asked as he moved away from Kay's bedside. It had been two days and there was still no change in his condition. Zed was beginning to get seriously concerned.

"Of course," Elle said as she followed him out of the room, leaving Jay at Kay's side rambling on about the fantastic baseball game he had missed on TV the night before.

"How is he doing? Really?" Zed glanced back into the room as he talked, looking at the silent form of his best agent.

"Well, I was hoping that he would be more responsive before now," Elle murmured. She was begining to get really worrried about Kay but she didn't want to share her worries with Zed. He had enough worries of his own right now. Kay was one of his oldest friends. Seeing him like this had to be hard. "It's still very early though, Zed, and Kay experienced a lot of trauma. His body may just need more time to recover."

What about brain damage?" Zed asked. "Have your tests shown what he might be dealing with concerning that?"

"Well, I can't say for sure until he wakes up of course, but he may suffer from a degree of weakness on his right side."

"Like a stroke, you mean?" Zed shook his head, trying to deny this possibility. His grandmother had suffered a stroke a few months before he joined the fledgling MiB and he still remembered how she had suffered, trapped in a bed with her body twisted into a useless form. She had been such a strong woman, had raised him after his parents were killed when he was a child, and then that strength was gone. She just lay there unable to speak, unable to feed herself, unable to manage her most basic bodily function, loosing the dignity all humans should have, her body ravaged by constant pain and sores until the very end. And now Kay was going to.... This just wasn't possible!

"Zed?" Elle said as she reached out and laid a hand on his shoulder. She could tell by his expression he must have had a bad experience once, lost someone close to him from a stroke. "Zed, Kay may wake up and be just fine. And even if he does have some problems, there's therapy. He was in fantastic shape before this. He'll bounce back."

Just then Jay came darting out of the room. "Elle, you better get in here now," he said as he grabbed her by the arm and started to drag her in. "I was talking to Kay and he opened his eyes! That means he's better, right?"

"Kay?" Elle whispered as she hurried to his bedside. What Jay had told her was true, Kay's eyes were wide open. Why wasn't he saying anything though? She sat down on the edge of the bed and begin to carefully examine him, frowning as she did.

"Well, how is he?" Zed asked a few minutes later. Kay's eyes had closed again a moment after they had came in, but it had to be a good sign that they had opened at all.

"Well, I can tell you right now that he's coming out of the coma but...."

"But what? He was awake! He's going to be fine!" From Jay's tone, Elle could tell that he didn't want anyone telling him something different, telling him his partner might not recover.

"That's the thing. He wasn't really awake," Elle murmured as she turned to face them. "It was a reflex response. It happens sometimes with patients in comas."

"So he's no better?" Jay murmured. He had been so sure that his partner was back!

"I wouldn't say that. The coma's definately becoming lighter. He's just not out of it yet. That's going to take some more time." Elle smiled a bit at Jay. She knew he had been hoping that Kay would wake up and bounce right out of bed. "Why don't you try talking to him some more? He's going to be able to recognize voices more as he comes out of the coma. I'm sure that he would be glad to know you're here."


	9. Chapter 9

"How's he doing today?" Jay asked as he came into the room the next day to find Elle standing by Kay's bedside, gently raising and lowering his left arm, flexing it at the elbow and wrist. "What are you doing?"

"I need to do some exercises to try to maintain his muscle tone." Elle explained as she moved to his legs and begin to gently work on the left leg pushing back to bend the knee and raising it a bit as she straightened his leg to flex his hip. "He's going to have a lot of rehab ahead of him when he wakes up. I don't want that to be any harder than it has to be."

"Uh, can I do something to help?" Jay asked. He really didn't understand what Elle was trying to do, but if it would help his partner to get better faster, he was more than willing to learn.

"Fine. Take his other leg like I'm doing," Elle said as she stopped for a moment to explain. "Push up so that the knee bends and then pull down again raising his leg a little as you do it so that his hip gets some flexion. Think you can do that?"

"No problem," Jay murmured as he begin, keeping a close eye on Elle to make sure he was doing things right. "So, how is he doing, really? You know, Zed's really acting weird about this. It's like he's in shock or something."

"Kay's a good friend. I'm not surprised Zed's in shock," Elle told him. "Kay is making some improvement, though. It's just going very slowly."

"How long until he wakes up?" Jay asked as they finished the exercises.

"No way to tell for sure. He's doing well considering the seriousness of his injuries, though. Just keep visiting and talking to him. He can hear you." Elle reassured him.

"Yeah. Now if he would just come out of this," Jay said as he picked up the book he had laid on the counter when he had gone to help Elle with the exercises and then took a seat by Kay. "Hey, partner. How are you doing today? I got permission from Zed to go into your room. Hope you don't mind that. I thought you might like to hear a book or something. The baseball came was lousy last night. Would probably just make you feel worse. I got A Christmas Carol, your favorite." Jay opened the book and begin to read, filling the room with the tale of Scrooge and the three ghosts.


	10. Chapter 10

Zed quietly entered the medical lab and walked over to the door to Kay's room. He had delayed coming to visit as long as he could, finding tons of things that suddenly needed to be taken care of immediately so that he didn't have to come down there, didn't have to see his friend laying there like that, suffering. Zed could hear Jay reading to Kay as he approached the room. Zed grimaced a bit at that. The kid had no idea what Kay was facing. Elle looked up when she head the door open and saw Zed standing there, a striken expression on his face. She turned and went over to him as he quickly backed away from the room.

"Zed?" Elle said as she approached him, placing a hand on his arm. "it's going to be alright, you know."

"How is he? Any sign of improvement?" Zed asked. He hated himself for backing away, for not going in and being there to support his friend when he needed help the most but he couldn't help remembering his grandmother, the condition she was in, everytime he saw Kay.

"He's making some improvement," Elle said with a smile. "He's reacting a bit to stimuli now. Not really responding to voices yet but that should come in time. How are you doing?"

"I hate it. I hate knowing he's in that condition, knowing what he's going to go through. Is he in any pain?" Zed asked. He had known his grandmother had been in pain at the end but before that there had been no way to tell.

"I don't think he's in anymore pain than usual after surgery," Elle told him. "I have him on medication for it in case, though, and of course I'm doing exercises to keep his muscles and joints working. That should help a lot as far as pain goes."

"What's his prognosis?"

"I can't say for sure what we can expect to happen. The brain's very tricky to deal with." Elle noticed that Zed looked away at that. "Zed he's making progress. He was in as deep a coma as it's possible to be in at first. He's made remarkably fast progress with that. The coma's much lighter now than it was."

"But you can't say for sure that he's going to recover?" Zed asked.

"Unfortunately not. The brain's very tricky, after all. There's a chance that he may never come out of the coma any further than he already has but there's every chance that he'll keep progressing and wake up fully within a day or two."

Just then Jay appeared in the doorway. "Hey, Zed. You coming in for awhile?" he asked as he waved the book in his boss's direction. "I could use some help with this thing. Thought Kay might like some different voices for the characters."

Zed shook his head as he followed Jay into the room wishing he could share the young agent's ignorance, his youthful optimism that everything was going to be alright. If only they didn't have to be here. He forced himself to take the book and start reading the lines as Jay directed. He would never forgive himself if he didn't at least try to help his friend.


	11. Chapter 11

Elle reached out, brushing back a few strands of hair that had fallen down onto Kay's forehead, giving him a slightly boyish expression. She smiled slightly, imaginig what Kay must have been like as a boy. It was hard to picture, that was for sure.

"I have your lunch for you," she said with a smile, sitting down beside him and arranging the tray with his food on it in her lap before picking up the spoon and dipping it into one of the mashed foods arranged on the tray. She had been forced to leave him for a little while earlier in the day to go to the store in search of something that he could eat. He seemed to be able to tolerate things orally and she was sure that he would prefer to be give nutrition this way rather than through a feeding tube put down his nose or placed directly into his stomach.

"Nice strained peas," she murmured as she slipped a spoonful of the food into his mouth, gently dabbing his lips with a napkin after feeding him the bite. "Bet it's been a very long while since you've had those."

She continued to slowly feed him, offering him alternating bites of the peas, some strained spinach that caused his lips to twitch a bit in an expression of distaste that made her giggle, mashed peaches and some sort of finely ground meat that had been mashed into an unrecognizable brown glob.

"You know, some of these things look a whole lot tastier on the jar than they do on the plate," Elle murmured as she fed him a bit more of the spinach. It was very slow going, sometimes taking a minute or longer for him to manage to swallow the small amounts of food she was putting in his mouth, but he was doing it.

Zed slowly pushed the door open and stepped in stopping for a moment ot stare at Elle, sitting there gently spooning baby food into Kay's mouth, talking to him softly as if he could hear her. He quickly looked away, not able to stand the sight of his friend laying there like that, so helpless.

"Zed?" Elle said as she turned, looking up at him. It had been five days now and it was very obvious that Zed didn't want to be down here, that he would find any excuse he could to avoid visiting.

"How is he?" Zed asked as he forced himself to walk over to Kay's bedside. He couldn't bare to look at his old friend in this condition and everywhere around the room there were signs of just how bad Kay was: the baby food, diapers. Zed cringed at the thought of those.

"He's stable and he's able to swallow now. That's good," Elle said. Kay hadn't made any obvious signs of improvement in the last couple of days but she wasn't going to give up hope. Sometimes a person could reach a plateau in their recovery and be stuck there for a long time. It didn't mean they weren't going to get better.

"Has he done anything, anything at all to indicate when he's going to wake up?" Zed asked.

"Not yet. Zed, the brain's really tricky to deal with," Elle told him. "He could wake up right now or days from now. We just have to be patient and have hope. Kay's strong. He's going to pull through this. Would you like to sit with him for awhile? I'm sure he would appreciate the company."

"No. I....uh, I have something to do upstairs. Alien delegation that needs my attention," Zed murmured as he backed towards the door. He hated himself for doing this but he just couldn't take it, could stand sitting by that bed watching his friend waste away, watching him slowly die.


End file.
